Gothikana
: Chapter 17

The next morning, Verenmore was buzzing with the arrival of Troy’s brother.

Corvina looked around the Main Hall at breakfast, amazed by how quickly the human mind could shift gears from grief about an acquaintance’s death to excitement about a stranger’s arrival.

“But he’s not just any stranger,” Erica told her conspiratorially, cupping her mug of coffee with both hands. “He’s one of Verenmore’s alumni. He graduated and joined the International Investigation Squad.”

Ethan played with the noodle on his plate, his jaw tight. “Troy told me he’d wanted to come to Verenmore to be like his brother. Make him proud. He idolized him.”

Fuck.

For some reason, that hurt even more. Corvina glanced at Jade who just stared out the window, barely touching the food on her plate. She extended the apple she’d brought for herself to her roommate, giving her a soft smile. “Starving yourself will only make it worse.”

Jade sighed and took the apple. “I know. I just… it feels so empty without him here. Like a chunk is missing.”

It was. Troy had had a unique, bright energy to him that had lit up the whole group. Corvina, who usually didn’t like many people, had really, really liked him. She missed him and the way he’d been with her.

Turning her eyes away, she blinked in surprise as Mr. Deverell made his way towards her table, a serious, intent look on his face. Her knees started to get jittery, her heart pounding as she looked around to see everyone quieten, watching him with curious, surprised faces.

He stopped behind Jade’s chair, his magnetic eyes on her, and took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. “Your request to make a call has been approved, Miss Clemm,” he informed her, extending the paper to her. “Please give this to your person of contact in the Admin office. They’ll guide you further.”

Corvina wiped her palm on her skirt and took the paper. “Thank you, Mr. Deverell.”

He gave her and the table a curt nod, and departed.

“What was that?” Jade demanded, her eyes wide.

“I need to call someone and the office told me I needed someone from the faculty to approve.”

“But Mr. Deverell?”

“He just overheard me in the office,” the lie rolled off her tongue smoothly. Jade frowned but leaned back in her chair.

“He just unsettles me,” she told the table. Yeah, he unsettled her too.

Done with her food, Corvina stood up and hiked her bag over her shoulder, gripping the paper in her fingers. “I’ll go make the call. See you guys later.”

They all waved her goodbye as she hurried out of the building into the misty morning. The fog had thickened so much she could only make out the shape of the Admin Wing ahead of her, the smoky arms wrapping around her, alienating her from everything but them.

There was something about that moment, that place that hit her like déjà-vu. Standing in the middle of the garden like that, Corvina could almost believe she had been there before, could almost believe she was in another time long past, with the same castle walls looming ahead, absorbing secrets never to tell with each tick of the clock.

Thunder rumbled in the sky, a gust of wind blowing over her face, the fog circling around her. The sense of foreboding came with the phantom ants scattering over her arms.

Rubbing them down, Corvina shook off the air of gloom and marched across the garden and around the side to the front of the Admin Wing.

A hedge of dark red roses in bloom that she’d not noticed before caught her eye, the red as deep as the blood that had pooled around Troy’s head on the ground. In a slight daze, she walked to the blooms, the fingers of her free hand going up to stroke the velvety petals, their texture as soft as a scrap of silk created by the death of a thousand worms.

The morbid thought jarred her into movement. Her hand caught on one of the stems, multiple thorns pricking her finger.

“Ow,” she winced, bringing her hand back, her eyes on the droplets of her blood sitting on the fat thorns, ready to be drunk down like a vampire tasting blood. Clearly, she was reading too much Dracula.

“Be careful of those roses,” a gruff voice from behind her made her turn as she turned to replace a big, muscular man with close-cropped hair and dark blue eyes standing in the driveway next to a silver pick-up. He locked the vehicle and shoved his hands in his thick coat pockets, a piercing in his ear glinting.

He halted suddenly when he looked at her, shock covering his face for a second.

“Purple eyes.”

Corvina was puzzled. She didn’t know this guy. “Excuse me?”

He blinked once. “Nothing. Just reminded me of something.”

“Um, okay. These roses?”

“They’ve been around since the university began,” he eyed the bushes behind her. “I fell into them one time during a fight. Suffice it to say, never went near them again.”

Corvina looked at the blood on her hand. “But how is this possible? Roses don’t live that long.”

The man shrugged his large shoulders. “How is anything possible at Verenmore? Some things just never had explanation here.”

With that, he went inside the building and Corvina followed, as the spectacled guy behind the desk looked up in the middle of a yawn, his eyes widening upon seeing the guest.

“Ajax Hunter,” the man introduced himself in a gruff voice. “I’m here for my brother, Troy Hunter.”

The guy behind the desk nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Hunter. Please wait here while I get someone to help you.”

Ajax gave a curt nod. Corvina stayed at the side. Her phone call could wait while Troy was being taken care of first. This was his brother, the brother she was supposed to tell something. But what?

“I’m sorry for your loss too, Mr. Hunter,” Corvina gave her condolences. “Troy is missed.”

His sharp eyes assessed her. “You knew my brother?”

“Yes,” Corvina fiddled with the strap of her bag. “He was my friend.” And he wanted her to tell him something. How he died?

“Do you have any idea why he jumped off a roof?” Ajax asked, leaning against the desk, turning his full attention to her.

Corvina mutely shook her head.

Ajax looked down at the little blood on her hands. “Was he suicidal?”

“Not that I know of, no. There’s-” she bit her lip, wondering if he even knew about Alissa and the similarity in their deaths. Was that what she needed to tell him?

“What?” he demanded.

“You’re an investigator, right?” Corvina needed to confirm this.

“That’s right,” he watched her with those eagle eyes, narrowing them slightly. “You think there’s something that needs investigating about my brother’s death?”

“Absolutely not,” Kaylin Cross’s hard voice interrupted their conversation as she entered the room. “His death was a tragedy. My condolences, Mr. Hunter. Miss Clemm, you should get to class.”

Yeah, she doubted she’d be able to get her phone call now.

“Nice to meet you,” she gave a small smile to Ajax and moved to the exit.

“Hey! You dropped your paper.”

Corvina turned to take the paper he was extending to her, frowning because she had her paper in her hand. However, with Kaylin watching them both with narrowed eyes, she took it with a thanks and left.

Once out of sight, she quickly unfolded the paper, looking at the quick note he’d scribbled, not even knowing how he’d written it with Kaylin right there.

The lake. 10 PM. For Troy.

The lake. The dreaded lake she had never been to after the last time, the dark woods she’d not been to in weeks. And she had to go tonight. For Troy.

**

Saying she was going for a walk to Jade was easy enough. Jade was used to her nightly strolls and didn’t think twice about it.

Corvina wrapped her brown woolen shawl around herself, still dressed as she’d been during the day. The moon was full, and for a moment, she hesitated, wondering if she was being stupid. She was. But she knew she needed to do it. In her heart of hearts, she knew something had driven Troy up to the roof, and his brother deserved to know that. She would have told Vad about her suspicions and her meeting but she’d neither had the time to catch him alone, nor the inclination, not after realizing she had no idea about him. She didn’t know if he was involved in anything, she didn’t want him to be, but until she knew for sure, she was on her own.

The wind was a gentle breeze in the dark, the trees dancing softly in it, leaves swaying, branches trembling as Corvina made her way through the woods with the lantern she’d taken from the Main Hall in her hand. She didn’t need it for the light since the moon was doing a good job of lighting her way, but she took it just in case the weather turned and clouds covered it, or in case she needed a heavy iron weapon. She didn’t want to be left with herself in the dark in these woods, not after the mirror incident.

‘Can you hear me?’

Not again.

The same feminine voice with the scent of decay, chilling her to the bone.

For Troy, she muttered to herself. Get to the lake for Troy.

Corvina forcefully pushed the voice out of her mind.

Though it was a beautiful night, it was a shame Corvina’s comfort with the dark had turned to slight dread. The girl who had always walked the dark alone without a thought had become spooked by her own shadow, the devolution a consequence of Verenmore.

She walked down the incline through the low mist that clung to the ground as she made her way to the lake. The opening in the woods appeared a few minutes later, her heart beating rhythmically as she neared the clearing, finally emerging on the bank of the lake.

“Here.”

She shrieked, swinging her lantern up to see Troy’s brother waiting for her against a rock, still in the same coat as he’d been in the morning.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. Thanks for meeting here,” he straightened and began to walk towards the left by the lake’s edge. “There’s a bridge just up ahead”, he pointed straight. “Got some cover there in case the weather goes bad. Let’s walk and talk.”

Corvina followed his lead, keeping a little distance between them, getting a sense of nothing malicious from him, only anger and pain emanating from his pores.

“I’ll take him with me in the morning,” he started the conversation. “But I need to know whatever you were going to say in the office. Do you think there’s something wrong with Troy’s death?”

The outline of a small wooden bridge appeared up ahead over a portion of the lake.

“I think it’s just odd. I’d spoken to him that morning and everything had been fine,” she reminisced. “And then when he was on the roof, it was like he couldn’t hear any of us. The fact that the exact same thing happened last year to a girl just makes it even odder.”

“What do you mean the exact thing happened to a girl?” he asked, his words fogging the air in front of him.

A small wooden gazebo sat at the beginning of the stone bridge. They climbed the steps and went to the center of the crossing. Corvina set the lantern on the wide stone railing and looked down at the dark, opaque water that reflected the moonlight.

“I mean the exact same thing,” she touched the cold stone with her palm. “It happened before I came here, so I don’t know the exact details. But Alissa, that was her name, went to the same tower roof and wouldn’t listen to anyone when they called and jumped off.”

“Huh,” he narrowed his eyes. “That’s-”

“Bizarre.”

“The castle has always made people behave… differently than they would,” Ajax looked at the water. “I barely made it out of here half-sane. And I didn’t want Troy to come here at all, but he just wouldn’t listen.”

“Do you…” Corvina hesitated. “Do you think it’s got anything to do with the Slayers legend?”

Ajax chuckled without humor. “Good ol’ Slayers. Who the hell knows? This whole mountain is cursed as far as I’m concerned. I don’t understand anyone who would stay here longer than they need to.”

Vad Deverell, the man who had been here for years, popped into her mind.

“I have a professor who’s been here a long time,” she told him.

“Really?” he asked surprised. “Who?”

“Vad Deverell.”

His eyes flew to her, his eyebrows almost hitting his hairline. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered under his breath. “Fucking bastard found you.”

Corvina straightened at his words. “Excuse me?”

A toneless laugh left him as he turned to look at the black mountains in the distance. “I’m a bit shocked, that’s all.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What’s going on?”

“Fuck, I need a drink,” he ran a hand over his scalp. “He’s just… I don’t even know what to say.”

Her heart sank. “Can you please explain?” What the hell was this man talking about?

His gaze went distant. “I met him when we were seven in a home for lost boys. We were all an odd bunch pushed there together. And it was a… dark place, let’s just leave it at that.”

Corvina’s fingers tightened on the stone railing as she listened to the story, palpitations making her heart crash against her ribs.

“There was an old lady at the home with us,” his knuckles turned white. “She’d been the caretaker but turned blind with age. But she knew things about us we never told anyone. Odd things. How someone would die, and they did. How something would happen, and it did. Just things, you know? We would eat her words up.”

“Okay,” Corvina urged him to go on, confused as to where this was heading.

“She told Vad to look for purple eyes,” Ajax looked into her gaze. “We were just kids. We made fun of him about that. Nobody had purple eyes, you know? But that’s all she told him.”

Corvina felt a shudder steal through her. “Are you messing with me?”

“I wish.” He blew out a breath, staring out into space again. “I didn’t even remember it until I saw your eyes this morning.”

“What… what happened after?”

“His grandfather came and took him out of the home. We stayed there until it burned down and took most of the boys with it. Those that survived went elsewhere.” He rubbed a large hand over his head. “I saw him again years later here at Verenmore. We were in the same class, but we weren’t really friends.”

“Wait,” she held a hand up, trying to wrap her mind around the onslaught of information. “You say his grandfather? You mean his actual grandfather? Not a foster family?”

“Yeah.”

But he’d told her it had been a foster father. No, he hadn’t. Corvina remembered his words, his carefully chosen words. He’d implied a paternal figure, never actually saying anything about it being real. He’d lied to her by omission, right after she’d told him about her mother. Why?

“Given your eyes and your questions, I take it he’s more than just your professor?” Ajax inferred correctly. “Since you seem like a nice girl, let me tell you something. This is information only the investigators have access to, but I think you should know this.”

Throat dry, Corvina waited for him to continue, her stomach leaden.

“His grandfather died suspiciously the day Vad became an adult,” Ajax informed her, his voice lowering. “Fell down the stairs and broke his neck. Except the stairs were too low and little to cause such a grievous injury. Vad became the sole and legal heir of everything since he was already an adult.”

“Hunter,” the deep, gravel voice from the gazebo had them both turning. Think of the devil was too appropriate a cliché to not even cross her mind. Vad Deverell stood in a black peacoat, collar turned up, his streak of grey hair shining in the moonlight, his face carefully neutral as he watched them both.

“Deverell,” Ajax greeted back in the same tone. “Funny, we were just talking about you.”

Vad pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “Must have been one hell of a conversation, you didn’t even notice me coming.”

“You always were good at sneaking up on these grounds,” Ajax said, his tone hard with a shared history between the two. He tilted his head towards Corvina. “Looks like old Zelda was right after all. You found your purple eyes.”

The sides of Vad’s jaw worked, his cheekbones pushing against his skin. “Let’s hope for your sake she wasn’t right.”

Ajax gripped the railing in his hand, giving Vad a cold smile. “I’m taking my brother and getting the hell off your cursed mountain tomorrow.”

That brought Corvina up short. “His cursed mountain?” she piped in, looking between the two.

“Ah, don’t you know?”

“Don’t,” Vad grit out.

Ajax gave a hard grin. “Verenmore had always belonged to the Deverell family line. It’s not common knowledge but legally, the castle and this mountain, are both his.”